White House officials confirm Yemen strike plan was wrongly sent to reporters

U.S. President Donald Trump’s top national security official, including his defense secretary and vice president, published a war plan on the upcoming military strike in Yemen to have group chats in a secure messaging app that includes editors of the Atlantic president, the magazine reported in a story posted online on Monday.

The text chain “seems to be real and we are reviewing how to add unintentional numbers to the chain,” said Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

Trump told reporters that he did not know that the sensitive information had been shared, two and a half hours after the report.

The text chain between the signal accounts appears to belong to the top Trump officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, “contains operational details of the strike against the Houthi-Rebels, which is backed by Yemeni Iran, including information about the target, weapons reported on weapons, and US attacked sequaphy sepractife sequaply sequence sequence offer gond, “Edoritor-inferge inf gond gond jefred-schieie.”

It is not clear whether the details of military operations have been classified, but they are often and at least kept safe to protect service personnel and operations. The United States has launched air strikes on Hotis since militant groups began targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023.

Goldberg said he received details of the March 15 attack, just two hours after the United States began a series of air strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

“I know nothing”: Trump

“I know nothing about it. It’s the first time you told me,” Trump told reporters, adding that the Atlantic Ocean is not a magazine.

Government officials have used signals to organize signals, but they are not classified and can be hacked. Privacy and tech experts say the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging and voice calling apps are safer than traditional texting.

Sensitive information is shared because Hegseth’s office has just announced crackdowns on leaks of sensitive information, including potentially using lie detectors on defense personnel to determine how journalists receive the information.

Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the Secretary of Defense posted a plan for war operations on unclassified applications.

“Striking” and “Dangerous” Violations: Members

Democratic lawmakers quickly condemned the violations of the procedure. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called for a full investigation.

“This is one of the most amazing military intelligence I’ve ever read in a very, very long time,” Schumer, a Democrat in New York, said in a speech Monday afternoon.

“If it is true, this story represents one of the worst operational security and common sense failures I have ever seen,” Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said in a statement.

He said that life in America is on “the boundary line.”

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat in Connecticut, said in a statement that he was “shocked” by the report.

Himes said if a lower-level official “does what is described here, they may lose permission and be under criminal investigation.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wanted to learn more about what was going on.

“Obviously, we have to run it on the ground and figure out what’s going on there,” said Thun, a Republican of South Dakota.

Under the jurisdiction of the Espionage Law

Under the Centennial Espionage Act, even if serious negligence is passed, the provisions for deleting such information from its “appropriate custody” are strictly subject to strict jurisdiction by law, including the provisions of crimes.

In 2015 and 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated whether former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton communicated confidential information on a private email server she set up with her assistant, and although the FBI finally recommended targeting the allegations, it did not raise any private email servers.

Under the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, some officials were licensed to download signals on phones issued by their White House but were instructed to use the app very rarely, according to a former national security official.

The official asked to talk anonymously about the methods used to share sensitive information, saying signals are most commonly used to convey what they internally call “tippers” to inform someone that when they leave the office or travel abroad they should check their “high side” inbox for classified information.

Sometimes during the Biden administration, officials also sometimes use the app to communicate about arrangements for scheduling sensitive meetings or confidential phone calls outside the office, the official said.

In the final year of the Biden administration, federal law enforcement officials warned that China and Iran attacked the White House and officials in the first Trump administration, and the use of signals became more common, according to officials. The official is unaware that senior Biden administration officials, such as former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, former U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and former national security adviser Jake Sullivan, used signals to discuss sensitive plans, just like Trump administration officials.

Some of the toughest criticisms on Monday were former Fox News host Hegseth.

“The most unqualified defense minister in history is proving his incompetence by literally leaking confidential war plans in group chats,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran, on social media.